Europe charges ahead in electric car use

13th October 2016 | Commercial Energy

Plans to equip every new or refurbished home in Europe with its own electric vehicle charging point have been announced in a draft European Union (EU) directive. As Europe makes progress with green transport solutions, the UK is falling behind because commitments to the number of ultra-low-emission vehicles on its roads are well below target.

The EU directive is designed to boost the electric car market and is due to come into force before the end of 2016. It also states that all new developments in the EU zone will require at least 10% of their parking spaces to have charge points by 2023.

A big turn off for many people there are perceived problems of short range, the time spent recharging and limited charge points for electric cars. Renault has just released an electric car with a range of 250 miles: Guillaume Berthier, Renault sales director for electric cars, said in the Guardian, “This kind of market stimulus is not just positive, it is mandatory if we want to see a massive rollout of electric vehicles in the near future. The question of how you recharge your car when you live in an apartment within a city is a very important one.”

An increase in electric transport will deliver benefits in reducing pollution in the short and long term. It can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by transport if the electric used for charging batteries is from renewable sources: long term it could mitigate climate change by reducing man made CO2 output.

The UK Government does not seem to be taking the threat of air pollution seriously: although targets were set for 9% of the UK’s car fleet to be ultra-low emission vehicles by 2020, it looks like they will fail to reach even half of this figure.

More information available on the website below

http://www.thecanary.co/2016/10/12/europe-charges-ahead-electric-car-use-uk-efforts-fall-flat/